


I'll Stay

by Parksborn



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Illness, M/M, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parksborn/pseuds/Parksborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Matt...?” he asks softly, before crouching down. “Are you sick?” he asks, brows furrowed, confused and tired, but his touch is so gentle it makes Matt ache. There were times when Matt would have shooed Peter out, tensed up and swore he was fine. They're past that, although sometimes Matt's pride gums up his words and keeps him from telling Peter the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Stay

Blood. He knows the smell, the taste, the texture. He's cleaned it and shed it and made it come about. He knows it. He knows it like water, with how frequently it comes into his life. He knows it, but he doesn't like it. Especially when it's Peter's. Because then it sticks. To Peter. To himself. To the bedsheets and the towels and the air in their home. It mugs up Matt's lungs the minute Peter comes home slicked in it, when it's cleaned off and stained the towels and dripped to the floor, it's still there, in his lungs, pressing down on his stomach. Every time he wants to give into the nausea. Instead he smiles softly as Peter makes bad, half delirious jokes and bleeds on the bedsheets. 

Smiling is the best remedy for nausea, his father always said.

Although, tonight, when the adrenaline wears off and Peter smells of singed spandex and flesh and blood, and after the boy is asleep and bandaged, Matt lets his insides be emptied out as he hunches over the toilet, and tries his best not to rouse Peter again. He'd like to say that his stomach is strong—isn't too sensitive, too easily upset. Although, in times like this, he's got no choice than to hunch over and let his muscles roll and clench up his stomach, push bile and vomit up through his throat and out of his mouth, coating his tongue, the scents in the room.

Tears slip from the corners of his eyes as he waits for everything to settle again, and he rests his head on his forearm that's draped across the toilet seat. It takes a moment, but his nausea stills, and he takes a deep breath. Good. He's so busy trying to keep his stomach from roiling again, he doesn't notice Peter pad into the bathroom until he says something.

“Matt...?” he asks softly, before crouching down. “Are you sick?” he asks, brows furrowed, confused and tired, but his touch is so gentle it makes Matt ache. There were times when Matt would have shooed Peter out, tensed up and swore he was fine. They're past that, although sometimes Matt's pride gums up his words and keeps him from telling Peter the truth.

“I'm fine... Just a little nausea, everything's alright.” The hand on Matt's back rubs in gentle, soothing circles.

“You sure? You feel warm...” Matt wants to argue his health, because he isn't coming down with anything, he'd know it if he was, but instead lets Peter wet a rag from him and lets the boy's affectionate, soothing touches sink into his skin. “Let's get you to bed,” he mutters, hand gently cupping Matt's cheek. 

“Okay,” is all he says, because he's so tired, and wants nothing more than to curl up in their bed with Peter.

“You're kind of out of it, Mattie,” Peter mutters, once they get settled back in bed, but Matt simply pulls Peter to his chest, burying his nose in in his lover's scent. He doesn't answer, just hugs Peter tight. After a bit, Peter shifts in Matt's hold. “Let me just... Grab my phone real quick,” he says, reaching over Matt for his cell phone on the nightstand. He fired off a text before lying back down with Matt, settling into the older man's hold. “Don't worry about work tomorrow,” Peter mutters, pressing closer against Matt.

“You told Fog that I'm sick?” he asks, and now he really wants to argue, to say something. But he doesn't, because Peter's hand is at his stomach and rubbing soothing circles into his skin, and that's a nice feeling, he likes it, he'll keep it.

“Yeah,” Peter mutters softly. “How's your tummy?” he asks, and Matt has a feeling that May used and continues to use those words and soothing actions with him, but the rubbing doesn't stop so he doesn't really want to think too much, but he does think about simply forgetting work the next day, and going along with this. He hasn't slept for real in a while, he needs the rest...

“Better,” Matt admits with a small sniffle—when did his nose start running?—and lets himself slowly drop off to the sound of Peter's breathing and the soothing touches on his stomach.

When he wakes, it's to a cough, and at first he thinks it's Peter's, but Peter doesn't sound like that, even when he had bronchitis, it was never that deep—and then he realizes that it's him, and that he's actually coughing something up, and that he's actually sick. There's a cooing sound—and that's Peter, Peter's hand on his back, Peter's voice murmuring soothing words Matt doesn't pay attention to...

When Matt's done coughing, Peter presses a tissue into his palm, and Matt has to spit the congestion he'd just coughed up out into it, before wiping at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “What time is it...?” he asks, and Peter tells him that it's almost eleven. He groans and tries to get out of bed, but Peter pushes him back down.

“Tell me what you need, I'll get it for you,” Peter says, getting up out of bed. Matt grabs his wrist and pulls his back down.

“No, it's just—it's fine,” he says, tugging Peter back against his chest, burying his nose in the soft chocolate locks. “Just stay,” he murmurs, hold tightening on Peter slightly.

Peter quirks a brow but doesn't say anything, simply relaxing into the older man's hold. “I'll stay.”


End file.
